Swagg Security is a hacking group that recently targeted Foxconn. Foxconn is a manufacturing company that is located in China and makes products for some of the largest technological innovators such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM. The hacking involved an extraction of login credentials, such as usernames and passwords, that were used by the employees of the manufacturing company. Foxconn has been experiencing a constant struggle with negative commentary regarding mistreatment of their employees. However, Swagg Security stated that their disappointment in the working conditions and the treatment of the employees of Foxconn was not the primary reason for hacking the company. Swagg Security claims that it was “the hilarity that ensues when compromising and destroying an infrastructure” that caused them to hack Foxconn.
According to Swagg Security, Foxconn did have an “appropriate firewall” in place; however, it still allowed the hacking group access into the system. Even the slightest weakness in the other security controls can enable a hacker to bypass the stronger controls. All companies will generally have policies and procedures that ban employees from accessing important security control information. The article does not state the policies and procedures for Foxconn; however, the article does state that the working conditions and environment of the company has caused many suicides to be committed by the employees. Such dissatisfaction by the employees may suggest that Swagg Security had somebody working for them on the inside that wanted to bring down Foxconn. If this were the case, Foxconn should have more closely monitored their activity/access log to assess whether or not employees were only accessing information they had access to.
MTNL website hacked by Anonymous
Anonymous, a well-known hacking group, recently made another appearance and compromised the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) website which made it unavailable for approximately six hours. Anonymous states that their reason for launching a DDoS attack on the MTNL website was because they “blocked the whole domain of various file-sharing websites”, rather than blocking just a few URLs. In addition to this DDoS attack, Anonymous also planned “peaceful street demonstrations” in numerous cities. The purpose of these street demonstrations was to remove blocks on these file-sharing websites and to amend certain provisions under the IT Act of 2008.
Preventing DDoS attacks is very challenging to do; however, constantly monitoring and auditing the system’s security measures can help to hinder these attacks from occurring. Rate limiting is a technique used to defend against DDoS attacks which reduces traffic to a restricted amount. Another defense against DDoS attacks is to validate the handshake by using a false opening. This method allows the firewall to send a SYN/ACK segment, after receiving a SYN segment, in order to reduce the number of traffic that flows into the target server. Once the firewall receives a legitimate ACK segment, it will send the original SYN segment to the target server. Also, black holing will help to defend against DDoS attacks by dropping all IP packets that are received from an attacker; however, this method is not as effective because the attacker can use different IP addresses.
Swagg Security is a hacking group that recently targeted Foxconn. Foxconn is a manufacturing company that is located in China and makes products for some of the largest technological innovators such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM. The hacking involved an extraction of login credentials, such as usernames and passwords, that were used by the employees of the manufacturing company. Foxconn has been experiencing a constant struggle with negative commentary regarding mistreatment of their employees. However, Swagg Security stated that their disappointment in the working conditions and the treatment of the employees of Foxconn was not the primary reason for hacking the company. Swagg Security claims that it was “the hilarity that ensues when compromising and destroying an infrastructure” that caused them to hack Foxconn.
According to Swagg Security, Foxconn did have an “appropriate firewall” in place; however, it still allowed the hacking group access into the system. Even the slightest weakness in the other security controls can enable a hacker to bypass the stronger controls. All companies will generally have policies and procedures that ban employees from accessing important security control information. The article does not state the policies and procedures for Foxconn; however, the article does state that the working conditions and environment of the company has caused many suicides to be committed by the employees. Such dissatisfaction by the employees may suggest that Swagg Security had somebody working for them on the inside that wanted to bring down Foxconn. If this were the case, Foxconn should have more closely monitored their activity/access log to assess whether or not employees were only accessing information they had access to.
MTNL website hacked by Anonymous
Anonymous, a well-known hacking group, recently made another appearance and compromised the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) website which made it unavailable for approximately six hours. Anonymous states that their reason for launching a DDoS attack on the MTNL website was because they “blocked the whole domain of various file-sharing websites”, rather than blocking just a few URLs. In addition to this DDoS attack, Anonymous also planned “peaceful street demonstrations” in numerous cities. The purpose of these street demonstrations was to remove blocks on these file-sharing websites and to amend certain provisions under the IT Act of 2008.
Preventing DDoS attacks is very challenging to do; however, constantly monitoring and auditing the system’s security measures can help to hinder these attacks from occurring. Rate limiting is a technique used to defend against DDoS attacks which reduces traffic to a restricted amount. Another defense against DDoS attacks is to validate the handshake by using a false opening. This method allows the firewall to send a SYN/ACK segment, after receiving a SYN segment, in order to reduce the number of traffic that flows into the target server. Once the firewall receives a legitimate ACK segment, it will send the original SYN segment to the target server. Also, black holing will help to defend against DDoS attacks by dropping all IP packets that are received from an attacker; however, this method is not as effective because the attacker can use different IP addresses.
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